Graxlan language
'' “Looks simple enough, right? But then you get words like this...and this...and also this...and who can forget this one too?” '' The Graxlan language (Garakusuran-neugetyū) is the dominant language on Graxlan-1 and is spoken by a vast, yet undefined majority of the Empire's citizenry, the Gara or Garai; it has been compared to languages such as English for its ubiquity. It is classed as an official language by the Graxlan Government, and as a minority language on numerous other planets. The Graxlan language is a highly agglutinative language similar in structure to the Arak languages found throughout the Arakeen Empire and even to some Human languages such as Hungarian; there is still extensive debate surrounding its exact origins, which are shrouded in mystery despite its widespread use. The Graxlan script, a logographic writing system considered by many to be indecipherable to outsiders, has gained prominence throughout the Galaxy in recent years for its complexity; however, a modified version of the Human Latin alphabet, complete with numerous diacritics to represent the language's unique sounds, is used for transcription of foreign words and in international or interplanetary contexts where use of the native script would be undesirable or cumbersome. Pronunciation guide The Graxlan language has approximately sixteen vowel phonemes and twenty-two consonant phonemes. No doubt owing to a similarly-structured vocal tract in both species numerous sounds share a rather-remarkable correspondence with phonemes found in several Human languages; the "f" sound, for example, is similar to the voiceless dental fricative (/θ/) found in English. Although the number of individual phonemes is relatively high, syllables are comprised mainly of consonant-vowel, or vowel-vowel combinations with some exceptions, resulting in just over 2,000 possible sounds. The language permits three consonants at most in an initial position and two finals (e.g. "zhrsepk", meaning "thunderstorm" and nowadays largely-superseded by "shuseku") but such syllables are comparatively rare and seem to be mostly found in older texts or particular dialects. Vowels *'a' - as in ‘father’; *'ā' - lengthened ‘a’ sound; *'ei' - as in ‘air’; *'au' - ow, as in ‘t'ow'er’; *'ou' - oh, as in ‘boat’ or ‘bow’; *'i' - ee, as in ‘feet’; *'ī' - lengthened ‘ee’ sound; *'ie' - ‘eh’ sound; *'u' - as in ‘foot’; *'ū' - lengthened ‘u’ sound; *'uou' - as in ‘through’; *'e' - as in ‘bed’; *'eu' - ‘ou’, as in ‘out’; *'o' - as in ‘bow’; *'yu' - as in ‘view’; *'ai' - as in ‘sky’. Consonants *'b' - as in ‘bag’; *'ts', or c''' - as in ‘boo'''ts’; *'ch' - similar to the ch in ‘'ch'air’; *'d' - as in ‘be'd'’; *'f' - very similar to the 'th' sound in ‘mir'th'’; *'g' - as in ‘game’; *'h' - as in ‘home’; *'j' - as in ‘jacket’; *'k' - as in ‘kingdom’; *'l' - as in ‘laboratory’; *'m' - as in ‘matador’; *'n' - as in ‘knight’; *'p' - as in ‘panda’; *'r' - as in ‘red’; *'s' - as in ‘summer’; *'sh' - similar to the sh sound in ‘'sh'adow’; *'t' - as in ‘time’; *'v' - as in ‘village’; *'w' - as in ‘walk’; *'z' - as in 'xylophone’; *'zh' - similar to the ‘su’ in ‘trea'su're’. Vocabulary The vocabulary of the language is known to have been influenced throughout the history of the language by various outside sources. Modern-day loanwords mainly stem from Human languages, owing to the close relationship between the Empire and the UFHW. Phrase list Greetings *'Hello' (formal) - ayaomava (ah-yah-oh-ma-vah); *'Hello' (informal, most contexts) - ayao (ah-yah-oh); *'Hello'/'Hi' (informal, some contexts) - aya (ah-yah); *'Good morning' - ayaomava bayūwo (ah-yah-oh-ma-vah bah-yuu-wo); *'Good afternoon' - ayaomava getsuō (ah-yah-oh-ma-vah geh-tsu-ou); *'Good night' - ayaomava agai (ah-yah-oh-ma-vah ah-ga-ee); *'Welcome' - ayaosyīma (ah-yah-oh-shee-ma); *'Please' - okoya (oh-koi-yah); *'Thank you' - amoto' (ah-mou-toh); *'How are you?' - Magen-bō kakareta obu? (ma-ge-n/m-boh kah-kah-reh-taa oh-boo); *'I’m fine, thank you.' - Nōyin-eto furugane, amoto. (nou-yee-n/m-eh-toh thoo-roo-gah-ne ah-mou-toh); *'What is your name?' - Magen-kyi osobu-fukai eihakobu?' (ma-ge-n/m-keh-yeh oh-so-boo-thoo-kai ey-ha-ko-boo); *'My name is...NAME' - Nōyin-sau katode osobu ... (nou-yee-n/m-sa-oo kah-tou-de oh-so-boo...); *'Yes' - Nakai (nah-kai); *'No' - Eru (eh-roo); *'Excuse me' - Akonai-ge subatto (ah-ko-nai-geh soo-bah-t-tou); *'I’m sorry' - Subatto (soo-bah-t-to); *'I don’t speak Graxlan very well' - Nōyin-nai Garai negetou hā tamasetaryū (nou-yee-n/m-na-ee Gah-ra-ee neh-geh-tou haa tah-mah-seh-tah-ree-yuu). Numerals *'Zero' - nīlu; *'One' - katsān; *'Two' - nendō; *'Three' - nemiyō; *'Four' - ovai; *'Five' - suyi; *'Six' - kyi; *'Seven' - mokau; *'Eight' - hagau; *'Nine' - yerau; *'Ten' - aheu; ... *'Twenty' - nendō-aheu; *'Thirty' - nemiyō-aheu; *'Forty' - ovai-aheu; *'Fifty' - suyi-aheu; ... *'Seventy-five' - mokau-aheu gau suyi-nevu; ... *'One hundred' - katsān-fayiu. Classification At present, the Graxlan language is tentatively classified as a member of the Arakai-Nebu languages native to Arakeen-1, based on a large number of similar-sounding words found between Graxlan and the Arakeen language, for example, the Graxlan stem gåben and Arakeen geibun, meaning "travel", or Graxlan varutei and Arakeen boruvut, meaning "mountain". However, due to the distance between the two planets the classification of Graxlan as an Arakeen language is highly controversial, and posits several questions; most linguists suggest that purported cognates such as these are merely coincidental. Current consensus suggests that the language was introduced to the planet by way of an Arakeen invasion sometime in the 23rd century, but evidence is scarce. Linguistic information The Graxlan language relies on extensive agglutination of verbs and nouns, with inflections encoded in a wide array of affixes; this, however, is much more common in verbs. Increasingly-long words conveying a wealth of grammatical and semantic meaning are commonplace and are formed by continuously-attaching endings to base words. Verbs inflect for tense, mood, person and the time of the action being done, as well as for intent. As an example, some inflections of the verb ‘to do’ are listed below: *''ade'' - to do (immediately); *''adesya'' - to do (in the near future); *''adesyāya'' - to do (in the more distant future; eventually); *''adea'' - have done; *''adeaya'' - have done (in the more distant past); *''adesu'' - to have done; *''adesunei'' - to have not done; *''adesugeteyu'' - to consider doing; *''adesugeteyunei'' - to not consider doing (the negative ending '-nei' is derived from a Human source, potentially the Japanese negative ending '-nai'). Nouns, whereas, inflect for a total of sixteen cases: Take the proper noun Jāru (Jal), a common Graxlan name: *''Jāru'' - default singular; *''Jāruma'' - default plural; *''Jāruya'' - accusative singular; *''Jārugato'' - dative singular; *'' * * *''Jārunouyinga'' - possessive singular; *''Jārumanouyinga'' - possessive plural; In spite of the difficult grammar, syllabification is easy and generally follows a consonant-vowel pattern as do many other languages such as Japanese, a widely-known Human language. Category:Languages